First Ancient Mammoth Image Discovered in Americas

Below:

Next story in Science

Hundreds of images of the now extinct mammoths and mastodons —
elephant-like animals hunted by prehistoric people — have been
found in Europe, but none had surfaced in the Americas, until
now.

A fragment of bone, discovered in Vero Beach, Fla., by a fossil
hunter, bears a 3-inch-long, 1.75-inch tall (7.62 centimeters by
4.45 centimeters) engraving of a trunked creature, whose
shortened, high-domed skull and longer forelimbs evoke the
body
of a mammoth, according to researchers, led by Barbara Purdy
of the University of Florida.

If genuine, this rare and spectacular find provides evidence that
ancient people living in the Americas during the end of the
Pleistocene Epoch created artistic images of the animals they
hunted, Purdy and her colleagues write online in the Journal of
Archaeological Science.

Mammoths and their mastodon relatives disappeared approximately
13,000 years ago, at the end of the Pleistocene Epoch, so this
image must have been carved by that time, according to the
researchers. [ 25
Amazing Ancient Beasts ]

The bone itself appears to have belonged to a large mammal, most
likely a mastodon or mammoth, or less likely, a giant sloth, they
write. [ Image
of carving ]

The image on the bone is not readily apparent, and the fossil
hunter who discovered it, James Kennedy, did not notice it for
two or three years after collecting the bone. When a cleaning
revealed the engraving, Kennedy contacted researchers.

The researchers set out to verify that the carving was indeed
created by ancient people using a variety of analytical and
imaging techniques.

"All of these results are consistent with the mammoth engraving
being authentic," they conclude.